Crime spike down, say police

A crime spike that saw 40 reports of property crime in a week seems to have abated, say police.

Earlier this month, police say they received 40 reports from members of the public about property crime, but the following week the number of reports fell to five.

Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Malley says the numbers over the last two months show the surge.

"Over the last eight weeks...we had 11, 4, 8, 6, 9, 9, 15 and then 40, and now we're back to five again," he says.

Mr Malley says Eastside, not usually a target for property crime, was hit particularly hard during the crime wave.

Eastside resident Robyn Delaney was one of those broken into earlier this month.

She says her wallet and phone were stolen out of her bag while she was hosting a dinner party.

"We had a couple of friends over for dinner ...and when I went looking for my wallet and phone...I couldn't find it," she says.

"It turned out that despite the fact that we had crimsafe doors, we'd unluckily left them unlocked..."

Robyn says she's heard multiple stories of break-ins around town in recent weeks.

"Our neighbors got broken into the next night, the neighbors across the road were done two days after that, someone else up the street...someone tried to break into their car and a couple of streets away in a different suburb, friends have been broken into twice now."

Sgt Malley says reports of unlawful entry and property theft peaked during the week of the NAB football match.

"With the football we probably experienced at least another 5000 visitors to town so with that came some crime," he says.

However, of the forty people currently under arrest for these offences, Sgt Malley says half are local offenders known to police.

"We have another two [offenders] in the cells at the moment so we're up over 40 arrests for 110 offences at this stage," he says.

Sgt Malley says the arrests are the result of a recent operation, 'Strike Force Vega', which has been targeting property crime over the last three weeks.

He says residents can help police by being vigilant.

"Because we live in a small town people do leave their doors open and their windows open...][but ] please lock your doors, please close and lock your windows," he says.

"Sensor lights are fantastic, big dogs are also fantastic, security screens...if you're inside your house, don't leave your car keys sitting on the bench or hanging next to the fridge -take them to the bedroom with you or hide them somewhere."